As of Monday, August 24, clicking on the link: https://www.schools.nyc.gov/calendar produces the message: No items were found. That’s certainly reassuring. Nonetheless, the majority of stakeholders, from Mayor Bill De Blasio to School Chancellor Richard Carranza to UFT President Michael Mulgrew to, oh, yeah, parents and students (remember them?) are operating on the assumption that the… Continue reading De Blasio & Carranza: Open (Schools), Says Me
As soon as New York City public schools switched to remote learning in March 2020, the narrative was set: All teachers and administrators are heroes now. Any dissent, whether it came from run of the mill parents or a Pulitzer Prize-winning one was labeled: Teacher Bashing. Taking the name-calling in stride (not my first time… Continue reading NYC Parents To Department of Ed: Who Will Teach My Children?
This is a guest post by: Aisha Baiocchi: Uses she/her pronouns and is half Brazilian and half Indian. She is a rising senior at the High School of American Studies in the Bronx. She is the founder and executive editor of The Outsiders Guide website. She is also an artist and an advocate for public… Continue reading Why We Created a Website for Students of Color, and Why We Shouldn’t Have Had To
(This is a guest post by Matthew Ladner, executive editor of redefinED. He has written numerous studies on school choice, charter schools and special education reform, and his articles have appeared in Education Next; the Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice; and the British Journal of Political Science. He is a graduate of… Continue reading Teachers Union Prez Says NYC Schools Have Been Fixed—But For Whom?
(This is a guest post by Tim DeRoche, author of A Fine Line: How Most American Kids Are Kept Out of the Best Public Schools, published on the 66th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.) The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted issues of educational access in our public schools, since there are stark… Continue reading Do NYC School Zones Violate Federal Law?
Following the closing of schools due to Coronavirus, New York state announced that English Language Arts (ELA) and Math assessments would be canceled for the 2019-2020 academic year. Though these annual exams are required by law, NYC applied for and was promptly granted a waiver from the federal government, in light of the ongoing health… Continue reading NY State Cancels ELA & Math Exams for 2020 – What Might Happen Next
A new year doesn’t mean an end to New York City’s education woes. In honor of 2020, we highlight 20 stories which are bound to continue vexing NYC families, ranked by how much traffic they received in 2019: 20: The Big Con: Why NYC’s Plan For Raising Student Achievement Isn’t Close To Good Enough For… Continue reading Top 20 NYC Education Stories To Follow In 2020
The NYC DOE has a program called CS4All which they say “will ensure all NYC public school students learn computer science” and that this will make students “better prepared to utilize computer science during their K-12 experience and after graduation.” Two weeks ago was their CSEdWeek, which encouraged many schools to bring “computer science to… Continue reading “Teaching computer science so people can work with computers is akin to teaching students about locksmithery so they can unlock their doors.” – How the NYC Department of Education Doesn’t Understand Their Own CS4All Initiative! (Part #1)
Heading into 2019 and 2018, I wrote about which New York City education issues vexed parents the most based on their post’s popularity. I have another planned for the end of this year: 20 issues for 2020! But, over the past 12 months, there have also been topics that didn’t get the attention they deserved.… Continue reading 10 NYC Education Stories You May Have Overlooked In 2019 – And Why They Matter
A pair of structural changes, one statewide, one nationwide, have been introduced as part of the ongoing hunt for that magic bullet to cure America’s learning woes. And not a moment too soon. The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports came out last month. Nationwide, on average, math scores went up for 4th… Continue reading It’s About Time: Education’s Latest Magic Bullets
